Eye Surgery By Magnetically Guided Microbots Moves Toward Clinical Trials

Sabine Hauert writes "According to robotics researcher Simone Schürle from ETH Zurich's Multi-Scale Robotics Lab (MSRL), the OctoMag is a magnetic manipulation system that uses electromagnetic coils to wirelessly guide micro-robots for ophthalmic surgery. With this system, mobility experiments were conducted in which a micro-robot with a diameter of 285 um (about four times the width of a hair) was navigated reliably through the eye of a rabbit, demonstrating the feasibility of using this technology in surgical applications."

Wet Macular Degeneration

[fizzer06]

I wonder if these could stop blood vessels under the retina from seeping without destroying the retina. I never knew WMD was as common as it is until I got it. The treatment is an injection in the eye every 6 weeks at $2500 each time. Good insurance pays off.

Stoked

[DoofusOfDeath]

As I age, I'm getting this accumulation of little maladies that's making me really hanker for advances in surgical technologies. Case in point, I've got an annoying floater in my right eye. They're traditionally hard to treat effectively, I think partially because normal surgical techniques does as much harm as good for this problem. It seems like just the job for a micro-robot that can swim through an eye's vitreous and gather/destroy other small objects.